In the eyes of the world, to preach
“Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2: 2) is a
ridiculous occupation––yet God has been pleased by the “foolishness”
of that very preaching “to save those that believe” (1 Cor. 1: 21).
It achieves success where man’s profoundest wisdom utterly fails,
for it changes lives for the better––radically, permanently and to
the glory of God. So what is the power behind such results? What is
it in the preaching that turns men––godless men “from idols to serve
a living and true God”? (1 Thess. 1: 9). Now this is a question that
every servant of God must face if he is to carry out “[the] work of
an evangelist” (2 Tim. 4: 5) successfully. Many are not spiritually
intelligent as to it, and having been discouraged by the apparent
power of the forces that oppose the Gospel, have sought to
supplement the preaching with human devices. In essence, they do not
believe that the simple preaching of God’s word alone is sufficient
for the task.

Look now at those hostile powers. Is not the natural man in direct
enmity with the truth of God? He has an indwelling antagonism to the
divine word. It is not only foolishness to him, but it stirs up his
ungodly passions, as it did against the Lord––the
Truth––Who was hated, despised and crucified. Then there is the
withering influence of the world––a world that provides everything
that ministers to the fleshly appetite of the unbeliever and tends
to make him settle down in his alienation from God. And of course
there is Satan, the god of this world and the arch–enemy of Christ,
who uses all his consummate subtlety to hinder the work of the
Gospel and drag souls to hell. What power has the evangelist to
overcome such awesome foes? The solemn answer is, NONE AT ALL!

Is all hopeless then? No! The Lord Jesus has not left His servants
here to win souls for God by their own energies––fruitless as that
would prove to be. Before His departure from those who were to be
His witnesses in the world, He promised to send the Holy Spirit who
would be in them, and work through them. Thus the preaching of the
Gospel would not be “in persuasive words of wisdom, but in
demonstration of [the] Spirit and of power” (1 Cor. 2: 4).

Accordingly, on the day of Pentecost a Galilaean fisherman, filled
with the Spirit of God, charges the Jews with crucifying Jesus the
Nazarene whom God had made both Lord and Christ. The result of that
testimony was the conversion of three thousand stiff–necked and
hard–hearted men. Subsequent to this, the testimony of Jesus from
the mouths of the simple and unlettered is acknowledged as the power
of God unto salvation by Jewish priests and Roman courtiers,
Ethiopian eunuchs and runaway slaves, imperial deputies and common
jailers. What was the secret? Simply that men spoke by the Holy
Spirit given to them (Acts 5: 32).

Yet there is another thing to consider. While the Spirit of God is
the great personal witness and the power of testimony for Christ in
the world (John 15: 26), the written Word is the revelation of God
to man, which shall judge him at the last day (John 12: 48). Coming,
as it does, from God, it bears the stamp of divine authority and
power, and to despise its unique characteristics is to undermine the
very basis of sound preaching. How can the word be proclaimed (2
Tim. 4: 2) when the word that is written is set aside? “The word of
God” says the Holy Spirit, “[is] living and operative, and sharper
than any two–edged sword, and penetrating to [the] division of soul
and spirit, both of joints and marrow, and a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of [the] heart” (Heb. 4: 12). Nor is this power
lost in the day in which we live. Rather, in contrast to the
ephemeral things around us, “the word of [the] Lord abides for
eternity” and “this is the word which in the glad tidings [is]
preached to you” (1 Pet. 1: 25). Let the servant of God take heed
lest he too lightly value that which is the Spirit’s sword (Eph. 6:
17).

It is clear then that the power of testimony for Christ in the
Gospel must be the Holy Spirit operating through the Word of God.
Truly “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the
surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us” (2 Cor.
4: 7). This fundamental principle of evangelisation––that its power
is always of and from God––can never be too much before our minds.
To supplement this power with any human device, whether modelled
from either the elements of the world, or from the wit or taste of
man, is to bring into question the sufficiency of that power and to
ignore the solemn warning of 2 Cor. 6 against the mixture of light
and darkness.

The Scriptures provide an example of a man who acted in entire
dependence upon the power of God in the Gospel––the apostle Paul.
When he visited Corinth he knew he had to do with a people who were
easily impressed by clever speeches and impassioned orations. What
could be more natural than for the apostle to seek to gain the
attention of the Corinthians by providing what appealed to their
tastes––a speech of impressive delivery, fine literary quality and
philosophical content. Here surely was the means both to attract
hearers to the preaching and at the same time make the Gospel
palatable and popular. How did Paul proceed? Let him answer himself:
“And I, when I came to you, brethren, came not in excellency of
word, or wisdom, announcing to you the testimony of God. For I did
not judge [it well] to know anything among you save Jesus Christ,
and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear
and in much trembling; and my word and my preaching, not in
persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of [the] Spirit and
of power; that your faith might not stand in men’s wisdom, but in
God’s power” (1 Cor. 2: 1–5). The apostle knew very well that if
they were drawn to the Christian way simply by his eloquence or
reasoning (that is, by the world’s wisdom), they would be building
on a foundation of sand. There must be a divine work to produce a
divine faith and hence the apostle avoided the use of anything that
might become a false basis for their souls.

Has this principle no application today? Are the evangelists to
adopt the pleasant things of man, the novelties of the age or
anything else to make the Gospel attractive to the world? Yet how
will the truth be made “attractive” without perverting its true
character? Shall the preacher cleave to the truth of God in its holy
power and simplicity to awaken man’s conscience? Or is he to use
means by which the man of the world shall be attracted, gratified,
mollified, argued and talked into an “acceptance” of the Gospel?
Surely to thus compromise the truth of God is seeking to please men
rather than God. How dare anyone soften down the testimony to suit
the prejudices of the unconverted? It is not even dealing honestly
with the men to whom we speak, much less before the God whom we
profess to serve.

Are hearers to be gained by the quality of the singing in the
gospel meeting, the choirs, the solos, and the orchestral effects?
That these means may appear successful is no reason for using them,
for we are here to obey God and not simply to proceed with anything
and everything that appears to work. Music and cultured singing do
indeed work powerfully on the feelings and emotions––in short they
appeal to nature––but they cannot work on the conscience. The words of a hymn, if Scriptural, may be used in new birth
(James 1: 18, 1 Pet. 1: 23–25), but rhythm is never
efficacious in that regard. Music, in its place, is not wrong, but
to employ it as a means of attracting men and women is to enlist
sensual weapons in a spiritual occupation.

Sometimes it is the personal dynamism of the preacher that is
stressed ‘Come and hear the famous Mr So and So’ and the like. There
were some in a bygone day who came to the Lord Himself on a similar
basis––attracted by the signs that He did. The word concerning them
is solemn: “But Jesus himself did not trust himself to them, because
he knew all [men], and that he had not need that any should testify
of man, for himself knew what was in man” (John 2: 24–25). Their
faith, such as it was, was founded, not on the rock, but on the
sand.

Powerful oratory and excitement, fetes and bazaars, entertainment
and even theatre may all prove effective in swelling the numbers in
so–called gospel meetings, but they will never bring about one iota
of change of eternal worth in the soul of an unbeliever. Are we
really to imagine that when the apostle said that “To all I have
become all things, in order that at all events I might save some” (1
Cor. 9: 22) that he meant that it was necessary to stoop to the
level of the world in order to save those enmeshed in it? Let us do
away with such unbelieving thoughts and instead hold fast to what
Paul said, by inspiration, as to God’s simple and unadulterated
Gospel: “For I am not ashamed of the glad tidings; for it is God’s
power to salvation, to every one that believes” (Rom. 1: 16).

The Power of
Testimony

Christians are always affected, more
or less, by the prevailing spirit of the world that surrounds them.
In the days of primitive Christianity this was illustrated by the
Corinthians, who, dwelling in a city noted for its luxury and
license, soon had these evils springing up amongst them, (see 1 Cor.
4: 8; 5: 1). One of the most striking features of the present day is
its general shallowness, and lack of that force and serious purpose
which deep conviction gives; and nowhere are these sad features more
painfully pronounced, than in the Church of God.

Brethren, we shall not fail in our pathway of testimony on earth
because of lack of knowledge, but rather because, though knowing
much, we are not utterly possessed by it, and hence feel things so
little. We resemble some broad but shallow lake, rather than a well
of small circumference, but deep. It is the man of depth and feeling
who is effective in the service of God.

As an illustration of a man who powerfully affected his fellows,
take Ezra. Failure and trespass began to appear in the shattered
remnant of Israel that returned from Babylon, and the old sin of
intercourse with the people of the land threatened again to ruin
them. It was an emergency indeed. Ezra called together no committee;
he laid no elaborate plans for reforming this abuse; he just felt
things before God, and as they affected God. He so felt things that
he rent his clothes, plucked off his hair, and sat down overwhelmed,
until, realising the full extent of it all, he fell on his knees,
and commenced a memorable prayer of confession by saying “O my God,
I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God”, (Ezra 9:
3–6). Then as Ezra was himself moved, others were moved with him,
(v.4). Indeed, as the work of God in repentance and confession
deepened in him, so the power of God radiated forth through him,
until “there were gathered to him out of Israel, a very great
congregation of men and women and children; for the people wept very
much”, (10: 1). As a result there was a national cleansing from
their false associations, and the plague was stayed.

What a contrast there is between the noisy and ineffective
machinery of man’s making, and the quiet ease and grace of a
heaven–sent movement, but that movement works through a man who
feels things with God. Jonah illustrates another phase of the same
thing. He was one of the most effective preachers of antiquity.
Though addressing a people of great wickedness, and carrying a
message of judgement—always an unpopular one—yet his simple words
produced astonishing results. To a man, the Ninevites sought the
face of God, and turned from their evil way, (Jonah 3: 5–9).

Why was there such extraordinary power with the message? Was it not
because the man who cried “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be
overthrown!”, (Jonah 3: 4), came up to his mission, fresh from an
overthrow himself? Jonah learnt experimentally what it meant to be
overthrown by God. When, in the belly of the fish, all God’s billows
and waves passed over him, the agony of it must have burnt into his
soul in a way never to be effaced. When therefore this man preaches
an overthrow, there is a power, a pungency, a heaven–born velocity
about his words, that is otherwise unknown.

Brethren in Christ, it were better for us to master well one lesson
in the school of God than to acquaint ourselves with much in a
superficial way.